The price of gold has been increasing steadily since July, 1st reaching a new record high yesterday when it soared to about $1600 per troy ounce (equal to 31.1035 grams). With stock markets gripped by the fear of a collapse involving southern-European countries (including Italy – to give you the blunt truth), everybody is investing in gold as a safe investment heaven causing it to reach staggering prices. (Clearly, I’m talking about absolute prices. Indeed, if we were to take inflation into consideration, gold was worth much more during the glorious 80’s).

Hence, stock markets seem to confirm what we always knew, that is: gold never goes out of fashion. As a precious metal, gold has such a strong heritage and many symbolic meanings attached to it and is blessed with so much charming power that should it lose part of its appeal in a given context, it would be compensated by the fashion industry for its other qualities.

Indeed, this is what happened recently.

If the season characterized by golden colour is over – golden sandals, 70’s mafioso-style watches are done and dusted and those hideous sequined and glittery tops are still only popular among Maria de Filippi’s fame-hungry wannabees: you surely must have noticed it, this is the era of bold colour-blocking and gold makes an appearance only in details and embellishments or as liquid material. (I refer to those mini-collections of gold-coloured two-piece suits, blouses and trousers created by Rossella Jardini for Moschino’s autumn collection which looked as if they had been literally poured onto the models’ bodies). Let’s admit it; nowadays the general attitude to gold is a bit more critical.

Over is the season of the full-gold look (from hip-hop-style bling-bling to shimmering chenille sweat suits) and we can even be honest about it – the swan song took place yesterday with the launch of the gold-on-gold cover of Jay-Z’s latest album entitled Watch the Throne (to be released next month). Designed by Riccardo Tisci, it’s a cross-breed between a Dubai-style bathroom tile and a digital reinvention of a medieval manuscript.

And yet, the relics of our not so distant, eye-blinding, gold-adoring phase are still with us: trends don’t simply go out of fashion from one season to the next, they linger and dissipate gradually. Hence, it is difficult to judge whether a piece of accessory is still representative of that phase or is actually the expression of our more critical attitude to gold. But it doesn’t matter. As we said earlier on, in the fashion industry gold is unlikely to be downgraded entirely. Just try to be more creative with it enhancing all the qualities of such material.